


Half Empty

by theCorvid



Series: a good man is hard to find [4]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Blind Jack, Deliberate Use of Triggers, I'm Bad At Tagging, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reunion, Wraithy Stuff, but it's not all bad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-17 13:43:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9327296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theCorvid/pseuds/theCorvid
Summary: He’d come this far for the sake of closure already, given so much honesty. He had to finish what he started. Their lips met and it was just like he’d seen before: a sometimes-solid mass that gave out, reformed, and gave out again, hesitantly existing.They kissed - but not really.





	

**Author's Note:**

> At least 90% of the credit for this fic actually being written goes to Chuck, who stood by me with patience and gentle encouragement all the way, even when I was being a lazy, depressing little shit. Thank you.
> 
> This takes place shortly after Reaper has been captured by post-recall Overwatch in the hopes that they can "cure" him. You can see our timeline of events and the order they tie together [here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lt7i7Bw_HvT8pXbiHNj1_KYaJm9DAjk4oHigngwBsd8).

Angela’s face was wrought with weariness and doubt. Bless her heart, she was scared for him still. But there was no fight left in her to stop him.

Save for just a little. “Please, Jack.”

“Angela,” he began, warningly. “Please, I asked--”

“I know,” she said. “I’m sorry.” She was still getting used to his new name. “76. Is there anything I can say to stop you from going in there alone?”

“Maybe,” he answered honestly. “But you’ve only got 30 seconds.”

She had nothing, and they both knew it. But for the sake of fairness, they stood in silence for the full 30 before his hand went to the door. “I’ll be waiting here,” she whispered as he entered.

The room was, to all extents and purposes, a hotel suite. It had a bed and a bathroom, neither of which were used. No kitchen facilities, and no clothes on any of the hangers. No belongings. Bare bones and dark, framing the even darker figure sitting on the bed. He wasn’t a prisoner - could leave whenever he wished. But he hadn’t, not once since he arrived.

When he spoke, his mouth didn’t move. It was disembodied, jarring. “Jack.”

He gritted his teeth. “Gabriel,” he replied, closing the door behind him. His hand stayed on the handle, just a light presence, to reassure himself that he could leave at any time. It was so obviously a crutch that Gabriel would just have to say something.

“Leaving so soon?”

He didn’t reply. His visor - a simple, wide strip of transparent red across his eyes, free of his clunky combat mask, courtesy of Angela and her ingenuity - blinked a warning about the lighting conditions as it struggled to focus on the uncloaked, unmasked shape of Gabriel-- Reaper, wraithlike and gaseous outline confusing its computer logic.

The silence between them stretched on until the hairs on the back of 76’s neck stood upright. The tension was palpable, but maybe it was a figment of his imagination, because Reaper was unreadable - he just stared, two crimson-red points against the practically featureless backdrop. Just as he was beginning to wonder why he came here in the first place, what he had even been planning to say, what in the hell there even was to say - the wraith spoke again.

“You won’t even look at me,” it spat venomously.

76 frowned. “What are you talking about?”

Confusion flashed across Reaper’s face, eyes flicking across 76’s face probingly. But realisation seemed to eventually dawn on him. “God, that’s pathetic.”

“What are you _talking about?_ ” 76 repeated stiffly.

“Your eyes,” he replied.

The voice was jabbing and irate, but there was a softness to it that implied something else, too. If 76 didn’t know any better, he’d think it was disappointment, or grief. Suddenly he felt like leaving. “What about them.”

He knew where the confusion came from, of course, because he’d seen it plenty of times before. His visor picked up a single, three-dimensional image, like a panorama, that was fed straight into his head - he might as well not have his eyes at all, so it didn’t matter where they were pointed. So far, it had been inconsequential - even funny, at times, to be able to watch someone when they thought his attention was elsewhere.

Now, though, he was making a mental note to ask Angela to get him a visor strip that was opaque, because the thought of Gabriel looking him in the eye when he couldn’t look back… he felt bare.

“Casualties of war,” Reaper mused.

“War’s got nothing to do with it.”

“Right,” he said wearily. “What does, then, Jack? Tell me.”

76 sighed out a breath. The question sounded innocent enough, but he knew what Reaper was really asking. _Whose fault is it?_ He was getting weary too. “Nobody’s to blame.”

Reaper barked a laugh so sudden that it made 76 start. It was hollow and rattled his bones. “Classic. The glass is always half full for you, isn’t it, Jack?”

The sound of his name jolted him again - it wasn’t getting any easier to hear, only harder, especially the way Reaper said it like he was spitting out sour milk. He was so sick and tired of this argument, the same one they’d been having, both together and apart from each other, for decades; he wished there was some way for him to tell Gabriel that he was just as sick of Jack Morrison, without him spitting that out too.

His hand went to the door. “Coming here was a mistake,” he said, quietly, almost as if to himself. Almost in apology.

But he doesn’t leave right away. He gives Reaper a chance to ask him to stay, or to give him something else, anything else. He was desperately hoping, chest burning at the sound of that voice, warped though it is, for an excuse to keep hearing it, so that he might sift through it to find some trace of Gabriel. He was too prideful to ask for it outright; after all, he was the one who came here. He hopes--

Hope... hope, hope. That was more of a Jack Morrison thing, but somehow there was still a trace of it there. He hopes Gabriel will just meet him halfway.

“We’ve made worse mistakes,” Reaper muttered, and for a split second, 76 scowled at the accusation - it’s a reflex. He expected only bitterness and blame. But then, a second later, he realises.

 _‘We’_.

It’s something. There’s that hope again.

He looked back at Reaper, making eye contact, forcing himself to bear it. “Yeah.”

Reaper - to his surprise - didn’t bite. He just nodded, minutely. There was a hanging sense of closure between them, suddenly. It was good - relieving and satisfying, justifying him coming here in the first place. But it was also haunting. Those eyes were fixed on him still, looking straight into him, and he had to say something. He just had to. There was nothing left to say, and it scared him to think that they might never need to speak again. He couldn’t bear it. He just couldn’t.

“You’ll be okay.” It came out of him before he thought it through. He didn’t know what he meant by it, or who he was talking to - if he was really talking about Gabriel, or if he was just reassuring himself. “You will.”

“Is that what that doctor told you?”

‘That doctor’ was still standing outside, most likely. That Reaper could separate his familiarity with her so easily was a sign that they still had some way to go before they could get their Gabriel back. But also, that he could be standing there in that room with him was a miracle he thought he’d never be able to see... recovery really might be on the horizon for him. Maybe he really could get his Gabriel back one day.

“Her glass is always half full, too,” he continued before 76 had time to formulate a response. “Some reason hers never got to me like yours did.”

At that, 76 looked to the floor. That he was so despised by Gabriel for so many years ignorant of the extent of it, without giving it his time- it had left him guilty ever since Switzerland. But now, with that small admission of fault, it was that much harder to bear.

He was still looking at the ground when he saw movement. His vertical peripheral on this was nowhere near as good as his horizontal, but any movement at all from Reaper would have been enough to make him defensive. He knew that he was unarmed, but from what little he’s read in the files, that meant nothing to the wraith, and he still remembered the blooming pain of shrapnel in his back. He looked up to see the shadowed figure standing, outline still confusing his visor’s depth perception.

He doesn’t run. He won’t.

“Jack...” Reaper’s stance leaned as if he was about to step forward.

“Don’t,” 76 said quickly. Reaper stopped still, to his surprise, but that... wasn’t what he meant, so he elaborates. “Don’t call me that.”

Those sharp eyes narrowed, then relaxed. He smiled, and it was unnaturally toothy. “I get that.” They were hurtful words to 76’s ears. He always thought Gabriel was such a good name, if ill-fitting at times. But before he could ask what name he prefers - hoping to God that it isn’t ‘Reaper’ - he’s beaten to the punch. “Who are you now?”

 _I don’t know,_ he wanted to say. Instead, he says, “76.”

“Your old ident.” He’d stopped smiling. “Then, I guess, you can call me 4,” he concluded. The grin came back again, more sinister. “Like the good old days.”

76 nodded warily. The old days weren’t that good, and he was sure Gabriel knows that, but- he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He won’t start another argument or bring up any old ones. Besides… they’ve both definitely had worse days.

“Alright,” he says. “4 it is.”

The silence that happened next, for the first time that encounter, was comfortable. Gabriel was still standing there, in front of the bed, and his form, though still blurred around the edges, was more solid than it was before. That had to be a good thing. Only then, he started to approach again with footsteps that looked firm but sounded like nothing at all. And 76 - to his own surprise - held steady.

After all, if Reaper was going to try to kill him, he’d’ve tried much earlier, right? He’d’ve been overcome with single-minded rage the moment he’d seen his face, right?

“Oh, Jack.”

...Right?

“Jack--” he repeated, and suddenly lunged forward the remaining distance, his gloved palm slamming loudly against the flat of the door next to 76’s head. Instinctively, 76 ducked and darted to the side, but Reaper’s body followed different laws, and it was too late - he was caged in by clawed arms, one above a shoulder and one below the other. He was so close that his breath - or, what would have been his breath - was a suffocating presence that filled his lungs, reeking of ozone.

His heart hammered in his chest. He heard movement behind the door- hushed, concerned speech and scurrying. He was shaking with panic, petrified into silence by his own name, and as Reaper began to speak again, he found himself less and less able to move, frozen solid.

“Why did you come here?” Reaper asked. He moved one of his hands from the door and hooked his forearm underneath 76’s chin, pressing against his throat, not quite hard enough to strangle him. His voice was a raspy, frustrated whisper as he repeated, “why did you come here?”

76’s hands came up to grab the forearm that was threatening to crush him, but his fingers couldn’t find a stable mass to grasp - it was like a pipe full of pebbles, feeling solid even as he felt his fingers slip through. “I…I just...” he began, but he couldn’t finish. He had nothing.

At the lack of an answer, Gabriel’s brow furrowed in anguish. This close, his eyes were like beacons, luminous, and without them, there would have been nothing else to hold onto... all that unnatural blackness of undeterminable depth, shifting and lurching like the sea.

They were his lighthouses, warning him of the shore. But he couldn’t bear to be away any longer; he wanted to come home.

He leaned forward, and the pressure against his throat grew stronger, refusing to give enough for him to breathe. But he’d come this far for the sake of closure already, given so much honesty. He had to finish what he started. Their lips met and it was just like he’d seen before: a sometimes-solid mass that gave out, reformed, and gave out again, hesitantly existing.

They kissed - but not really.

He wondered if Gabriel could feel it, could even feel anything. But he lingered anyway, and as he lingered, it started to become real - those red beacons gleamed, blurry from proximity, until, slowly but surely, they closed. Those lips became more and more sure of themselves as the kiss became deeper, until they felt truly real, real enough that he didn’t miss his lighthouses anymore. By the time the arm at his neck began to let up, allowing him a grateful breath of ozone now stronger than ever, it had become real too, cleverly mimicking the firmness of muscle.

It was so good. So uncharacteristically sweet for the people they were, such a relief to be welcomed home, even knowing it might not last. Gabriel kissed exactly like he always had: interspersing insistence with teasing invitation, drawing back and drawing in. It was so immersive after so long without it - or without anything of the kind, for that matter, from anyone at all - that he didn’t notice that the arms pinning him had moved until he felt the light scratch of claws against his temples.

He jolted, sucking in a breath that left a chemical sting in his lungs. It was a reminder to his body of the danger, and he drew back, trying to focus on what little movements he could make out.

Reaper hushes him. It sounds more like a hiss, but the intent gets through. “This,” he says, and secures a grip on the edges of his visor. Cold dread fills him - he goes to grab Reaper’s wrists to wrench him away, but they disappear again under his fingers. It’s hopeless. “This comes off.”

“No,” he grits immediately, but the wraith isn’t listening. It’s not Gabriel anymore - his Gabriel wouldn’t do this to him. “No!” he yells, and slams his full weight back against the door as fingers tug on the sockets where the visor connects to his temples.

He hears raised voices behind the door saying a name, but it’s not his name. The door opens inward, but the toe of a boot - another clever mimicry - thwarts it before it can move more than an inch. Reaper growls at his struggling, and then there’s a third sound - a buzz of upset electronics, followed by the urgent beep of an error report. Something about _‘CEREBRAL I/O’_ and _‘FAILURE’_ flashes across his vision in a red that’s so similar to the red points behind them that he can’t distinguish between them at all, can’t see anything--

\--can’t see anything at all when a final tug wrenches the visor free of its ports, clasping mechanisms straining and finally breaking with a light twang of metal.

“That’s better.” He hears his visor hit the floor. He sobs hopelessly as a hand grasps the back of his neck, claws scratching there almost affectionately. “Shh, shh…” Reaper reassures him, lovingly. “It was in the way.”

Then Gabriel was kissing him again, deeply, his chest now solid against him too, and although his heart was hammering and his useless eyes were still darting in a futile search for discernible shapes, the feeling of Gabriel’s lips... the sound of his kind, tender words… his body resigned. It was sinister and ungenuine, but he didn’t care. He missed love so badly, starved of touch for years, and though he might have thought that Reaper was the last person he’d want to be touching him, he turned out to be wrong. All the ways he touched him were uncanny; his face didn’t look like Gabriel’s, but with no eyes to see him with, that didn’t matter. All that mattered was the way he felt; his nails - rough and sharp from inattention or something else - tickling across his skin; the way his tongue ran over his teeth exploratively as though it was the very first time, and maybe, effectively, it was - maybe he’d forgotten. And the way he-- the way he lodged his thigh in between Jack’s own and pressed forward in a way that was simultaneously controlling and benevolent. It all came together into a collage of sensory nostalgia that left him shivering and useless.

“Jack,” Reaper drawled against his lips. The shivering became unpleasant. The wraith leaned into him again, and their combined weight clicked the door shut again. “Do you really think I’ll be okay,” he said with a playful graze of teeth on his bottom lip. The tone was laden with badly-hidden uncertainty.

It took a while to formulate an answer. How could he answer that, honestly or not? If he said yes, there would be resistance that he didn’t want to be on the other end of, and if he said no, he’d be encouraging a trail of thought that he didn’t want Gabriel to go down - one that might mean he’s lost for good. And he knew that not giving an answer wasn’t an option; he was trapped between a rock and a hard place, where any word - or lack thereof - might be his last.

He was damned if he did, and damned if he didn’t. Which was fitting, he supposed - under the gaze of Reaper, he was nothing if not a damned man.

“Yeah,” he answered truthfully with an exhale.

Reaper broke contact with his lips, and though he couldn’t see it, he could feel the red eyes scrutinising him. “What the hell would you know?”

“I…”

“How would you know anything about redemption?” he interrupted, and with fierceness rising in his voice, he continued. “What wrongs could you have to right?”

The question, at first, gave him pause. He didn’t think-- after all the terrible things Reaper had done, after the length’s he’d gone to to completely defame the name of Jack Morrison, and even after he’d started to make baby steps towards acknowledging fault for all of those needless deaths-- he’d never call Jack a saint. There wasn’t chance in hell. He’d hold Jack Morrison accountable for his actions till the day he died- for good.

So, then, he realised: the question was rhetorical. It was a test. Jack swallowed, hard. Reaper’s vestigial breathing ghosted over his face, scalding and yet somehow still cold, and the jagged edges of his nails pressed until they drew blood from the back of Jack’s neck.

This could be a turning point, or maybe he’d already been judged. “I should’ve done a better job,” he whispered. There was silence. It almost physically hurt him to continue. “I was selfish.”

“Really?” Reaper said immediately. “You’ve changed your tune.”

“No. They’re--”

“I thought you were all about selflessness.”

“No,” he said again, defiantly. “It’s not like that. It’s-- they’re two sides of the same coin.”

“Selfishness and selflessness?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

He smiled then, despite everything. It was like he was talking to Gabriel again, just like that - they were arguing, but there was something to be said for it. His chest felt warmer for it. And as Reaper saw him smile, the air itself seemed to feel warmer too. “It’s not. We were always both, at the same time. We just…” He trailed off, thoughtfully, and then corrected himself. “I picked the wrong people.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

“I’m trying--”

“Enough,” Reaper hissed, turning the air cold again. He thumped his fist angrily against the wall next to Jack’s head, and the sound boomed into the muted room like a thunderclap, making him jump out of his skin. “Enough with the fucking bullshit! Spit it out!”

Jack’s heart hammered, and he wanted nothing more than to duck and roll and get the fuck out of there. Gabriel could change the feeling of an entire room in an instant - that was nothing new. He’d just never tasted a change so hostile, not because Gabriel had never said anything with such hostility, but because for the first time since they’d known each other, he knew it meant that what he said next might genuinely be a turning point for both of them - or just more of the same, but worse.

It wasn’t the first time it had happened, of course not. But he had been so complacent before, that there’s nothing he could have said to Gabriel to drive him away forever. He’d always be there-- until one day he wasn’t.

He couldn’t lose him again. “I’m-- I’m sorry,” he grated out like it physically hurt him to say, and he wasn’t sure why. He didn’t feel pain - just shame. He couldn’t look Gabriel in the eyes to convey honestly, or touch his shoulder with affection. His chest ached with hope that Gabriel could somehow detect his sincerity, because he was having trouble detecting it himself - but it was there. He said it again. “I’m sorry.”

For a few seconds, there was no response or movement at all, and he anticipated a blow, but did nothing to stop it. How could he? But then Reaper spoke. “You’re sorry,” he deadpanned, simply, but almost disappointedly.

“I’m sorry,” Jack confirmed.

There was another silence then that hanged in the air, not menacingly like he’d expect a silence with a wraith to be, but awkwardly, like he’d expect a silence with Gabriel to be. Neither Reaper nor Gabriel tended towards silence, he thought, but it almost always meant something had gone wrong, or was about to. He tried to think of something to say to break it, but came up short. The air was a light breeze away from bitter and venomous, again, which seemed like such a waste when so much had been said and it felt like they’d come so far.

But- the tension didn’t snap, in the end. It drifted, almost sadly, away with Gabriel as he pushed himself away from the wall and the clear air rushed in to take his place in Jack’s lungs. Jack thought of his broken visor on the floor somewhere. “Gabriel--”

“I get it,” Gabriel spat back at him quickly.

“No, I wasn’t going to- I’m not apologising again.”

“Oh, you’re not?”

“No,” he says firmly. The unspoken message is there: Gabriel hasn’t apologised yet, and he absolutely needs to meet him halfway, or else it isn’t going to work between them. But Jack wasn’t going to rush him. “I was just gonna ask about… my visor.”

After a moment, there was a quiet, “oh”, and then a few dulled footsteps before he felt the solid edge of the device pressed against the back of his hand. He took it and nodded in thanks, and then the presence was gone again just as quickly. From the other side of the room, came Gabriel’s voice - not a trace of Reaper, or maybe Jack was just in denial - quiet and subdued. “You should go.”

“Do you want me to go?”

There was a curious pause. “Don’t you want to go?”

“Not if you want me to stay.”

There was a sigh after a moment. It rattled sickly, sounded painful, like Gabriel needed to cough, but he doesn’t. “I don’t know what I want,” he said finally, and the way his voice cracked when he did- it made Jack’s heart break, made his fingertips itch to reach out and feel for the other man in the darkness. “Just go.”

And, curiously, he didn’t want to. But, in the end, he does. He never liked awkward silences even at the best of times, but at the worst of times, like these, they’re downright unbearable. He was never good with words, at knowing what to say. But there was more than just awkwardness to tolerate in that room. He remembers what Angela had told him a week ago, back before he’d considered ever talking to Gabriel again: _‘He needs space. He needs to be alone’_.

“Okay.” There was nothing more that needed to be said, he knew. “It’s been good to… good to see you, Gabe.”

There was no reply, but he felt judgemental eyes on him... somehow. The sentiment- was received, even if it wasn’t fully understood. That was enough for him, and really, when it came down to it, it’s the only reason he came here. Maybe that’s what he should have given as his answer, but that probably wouldn’t have been understood either.

He’d done everything he could, and everything he was willing to. So with his grip firm on the handle and the silence heavy on his heart, he left.

**Author's Note:**

> Please check out the rest of the fics in the series, especially the ones Chuck wrote!


End file.
